La Mandragore: Comedie en Cinq Actes de Machiavel Gentilhomme Florentin. (The Mandrake).

MACHIAVELLI, Niccolo. Illustrated by Claude Durrens.

$650.00

Item Number: 101228

Soixante-Dix-Sept signed limited edition of Machiavelli’s classic comedy, The Mandrake. Folio, loose leaves as issued, illustrated with 12 original lithographs by Claude Durrens, additional suite of lithographs in rear. One of only 77 copies signed by the artist on the colophon. In very good condition. housed in the original one quarter morocco and chemise slip case.

Although The Mandrake was first published in 1524 and first performed in the carnival season of 1526, Machiavelli likely wrote the five-act comedy in 1518 as a distraction from his bitterness at having been excluded from the diplomatic and political life of Florence following the 1512 reversion to Medici rule. Both contemporary and modern scholars read the play as an overt critique of the House of Medici; however, Machiavelli set the action in 1504 during the period of the Florentine Republic in order to express his frustrations without fear of censure from patrons already ill-disposed towards him and his writing.